Joe Lean exhales a cloud of smoke, flicks the ash from his roll up and then, with theatrical flourish, announces himself as one of the most ridiculous personas that pop music has met in an age...

"I think the current sonic aesthetic, as it were, is a really versatile and popular one," he begins, in an actor's voice Uncle Monty from Withnail And I would be proud of. "But over the last 20 years, this sonic aesthetic has become more and more diluted, so that it feels rather... [scrunches face] flat ."

It's not every day you hear indie music described as "the current sonic aesthetic". But then Joe Lean and his band The Jing Jang Jong aren't your average indie band. Yes, they've the requisite spiky riffs, catchy tunes and drainpipe trousers to make them - yawn - an industry "buzz band". But when it comes to their background, well that's a rather different story. Joe was treading the boards from a frightfully early age, appearing in Chekhov plays as a child and, more recently, playing JMW Turner in Simon Schama's Power Of Art.

"My voice was trained when I was six, because I'd go to youth groups. That was what you did when you lived on a Brixton council estate, to keep you off the streets." Brixton estate? So you're not actually posh at all, then? "No," he says, before pausing to reconsider. "Well, kind of. My family are aristocratic. My grandparents are Baron and Baroness Von Moyland, my father's side are intellectuals and my great-great-uncle was Sigmund Freud."

Splutter! What?!?

"Yes, and my great grandfather is Edward L Bernays [often hailed as the founder of modern day public relations]. Although I don't know an awful lot about him."

The upshot of this thespian background is that Joe recently appeared in The Tudors and cult comedies Nathan Barley and Peep Show. Until he fell out of love with camera acting, that is: "It's just so fucking boring. Plus, I hate actors. Vapid, ambitious little creatures..."

And so onto the music, then, where things are equally hilarious. Joe, still only 24, spent several years as a member of The Pipettes, before forming The Jing Jang Jong in 2006. After just a handful of gigs, the romantic indie pop of tracks like debut single Lucio Starts Fires has seen them drowning in a sea of music industry dribble.

"Oh, it's just horrible ," reckons Joe. "I feel all this hype does is expose the conglomerative, sadistic nature of the music industry. Like, when I read 'this band are going to be big' I just think 'surely that's just anti the whole concept of taste and palette ?'"

Quite. Joe claims that "any friends we might have had hate us because of the hype". But recent interviews won't have helped his case, with bold claims that his band are the antidote to stale British pop, the musical second coming of Christ, if you will. In reality, of course, Joe Lean's gang make chart-friendly indie and sound, basically, like Razorlight.

"I find that offensive," says Joe. "But whoever says that hasn't really listened to it. I mean, in the sense that I wanted to be grouped within this sonic aesthetic, then of course it's imperative we sound like Razorlight! I want to sound like Razorlight and the Strokes and Bloc Party. But we don't actually sound like any of them. We're broader than that. I want to make music that a tribe in Papua New Guinea can relate to."

Riiiight! By this point in the interview, we'd expect pretty much anything. It comes as barely no surprise at all to find that Joe Lean is also writing songs for Sugababes and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, while stories that's he's composed for mini orchestras barely register. Only when he starts - I kid you not - human beatboxing his way through the history of UK grime, do I struggle not to burst into hysterics.

"Every B-side we ever do, we're going to choose a genre that isn't us, and then have a musical theory lesson with a scholar of that genre, work out the rules and then compose a piece. It's an excuse for us to develop as composers."

Does that not question the authenticity of what you're doing?

"The authenticity is based on the fact that I want to learn. I find no problem with baring my soul to the extent that people know I want to compose for gamelan."

Compose for gamelan?! Joe Lean is certainly a one-off. But whether or not anyone will take him seriously as a rock'n'roller when he says things like "the first thing I did when I got off the plane was head to Harvey Nicks and shout 'get me an amazing, fuck off pair of boots'" is another matter entirely. Not that he's bothered.

"I prefer to watch something composed, considered," he concludes. "I don't want to watch a guy in ill-fitting jeans and a tracksuit top. I want to see someone in clothes I don't own, jumping in a way I don't jump, singing in a way I don't sing. I want to put on a show! I'm not into promoting the scuzz of real life. I want to promote the escape to the mind's antipodes! I want to be like silver surfers flying through space on biscuits hitting you in the tits!"

He turns to gaze at the heavens. "I want to be an other-worldly being!" You can relax, Joe Lean. For that is one thing you most certainly are.